Ranch Life – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

Skip to content

Home
Contact
Neil’s Books
Poems
Kind Words
A Neil a Day Poems

Category: Ranch Life

The Farmer’s Daughter

Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Children / October 19, 2019 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

That little skipping step
the white cotton dress
the pebbles rolling
down the path

The sunflowers turning
to watch her as she passes

Mud

Nature, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Remembering / tagged Kids / October 17, 2019 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

there aint nothing like mud for misery and fun for curse deep wheel to the axle and rivers with sticks and squish between the toes and fallen on top of the one that just fell and pants stiff to cracking before you're half way home grown ups are no fun

Pie

Nostalgia, Ranch Life / tagged Baking, Family Traditions / October 14, 2019 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

It ain’t the pie
it’s that Momma made it

Lemon with mountain meringue

Deep apple - with a slice of cheese
(or else it’s the kiss without the squeeze)

Blueberry, saskatoon or cherry
the berry can vary the taste’s the same

Wood-fired memory of the ranch again

Enjoying leftover pie for breakfast today – Remnants of our Canadian Thanksgiving feast.

Baling Love

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cowboy Poetry, Cows, Farm, Manure, Ranch Life / October 13, 2019 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

When it’s over 90 in July alfalfa gets dry
and blows into the knotter
and the knots won’t stay tied
So you ride on the bouncing back
where each ke-chunk of the plunger
blows chaff in your eye as you search for
loose ends of twine that you finally find
and tie into a new knot, with love, or not

Then you pile them in piles of five
to keep the wet weather at bay
and you pile them any which way
or you pile them with love and pride
pile them right like Frank Lloyd Wright

Hurried by a wind blowing in from Alaska
You handle that same bale again in the fall
tossing it up on the wagon, kneeing it with
bloody knees through thistle-torn jeans, or
an overhand flip with a three-tined fork and
the grace and precision of a pole vault champ

Fourth time you see that bale
you unload that wagon and make a stack
while chaff turns your collar to sandpaper
And you can do it so when you stand back
you can see every bale fits without a crack

Fifth time you see that bale
it’s winter and maybe forty below
prying frozen cubes out of that stack
where the cattle are waiting, with steam
rising from hot breath and fresh manure
and you carefully cut each Ariadne thread
so not even Theseus could follow it back
through their labyrinth of seven stomachs

Next time you see it is in late spring
when four feet of crap in the calf shed has
melted to the bottom and you’re in and out
with the front end loader and the ammonia
clearing a whole winter from your sinuses

And then off to the fields to spread it out and
complete the circle, trying to stay up wind
and as old Bob used to say, “keeping your
mouth open to keep your face clean”

All that to feed your family, and the world
all that with love, or not

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

2 Replies

Ode to the Farmer

Audio Recordings, Cowboy Poetry, Farm, Ranch Life / October 12, 2019 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

No one will be surprised by the report
that farming is a very dangerous sport

What flapping empty-fingered gloves
point back to momentary lapses
What limbs with what power
have been taken off
by power take-offs

What tendons snapped like glass
and bones cut clean as grass
by unthinking mowers

And what of those neighbours
dead and true
who for a minute forgetting
what they knew
through red machines
combined with their grain
All these have earned his dusty tear
and many a “who’s next” fear

Year after year after year after year

And yet deep in the soils of time
the seeds of his goodness
are growing
while the world
turns in slow seasons

And he will be ready
when at last they declare
a true war on poverty
and are willing to bomb
with wheat

Field of Vision

Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Ego / October 11, 2019 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Paranoid farmer
deep in the gold of a sunflower field
morning and evening aware
that he is being watched

Narcissist son by his side
basking in the glow

Photo by Lachlan Gowen on Unsplash

Mom, Happy Birthday

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Relationships, Remembering / tagged Love, Mother / October 3, 2019 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Oh we would circle
rattling tin-wheeled trucks and trikes
and drive her crying to her bed

Gather soot enough from here and there
to keep her forever scrubbing
at our souls and skins

And worry her near to death
while she stayed up to worry us alive
from many a snow and beer-filled drive

I know she does it to this day
and I’m afraid anything else I’d say
would all be mush and love
and angels watching from above
and yet still, I think I will

Thinking of my Mom today, on what would have been her 102nd birthday.

The Crow

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nature, Ranch Life / tagged Death, Guns, Hunting / September 28, 2019 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

TWO BOYS AND CROW AT FIFTY YARDS
TWO SHOTS AS ONE THE CROW FELL STILL
WE LAUGHED AND RAN
WHOSE HIT WHOSE MISS
TWO HOLES IN HEAD
AS CLOSE AS THIS
O O
THE LIFE WAS IN OUR EYES AND SKILL
TOO FAR FROM DEATH TO UNDERSTAND A KILL

Gopher Tails

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nature, Nostalgia, Ranch Life / September 27, 2019 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

When I was seven
gopher tails were three cents

The county had a bounty
to arrest the little pest
not exactly a price on their heads
but you get the picture

So we hauled buckets of water
to drown them out
Learned from the bigger boys
how to tie a noose in binder twine
Placed it around the hole
and waited

Curiosity
which has been known to kill cats
is not very good for gophers either

Once caught
they were run in mad races
spun to centrifugal asphyxiation
or finished off in other cruel ways
before yielding us our hard-earned bounty

In the spring we watched their return
to the snow-speckled pasture
running tumbling wrestling
making love

And the wonderful babies
when they first ventured out
to try sunshine, grass and shaky legs

It amazes me now
that as boys we could take
such joy in their playful beauty

and in their deaths

2 Replies

Grandpa’s Upstairs Porch

Nature, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Relationships, Remembering / September 26, 2019 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The only scenery was sky
the only light was lightning

Five of us sibled summer nights
blanketed against the cooling air

Watching storms from forever away
til they rained us to our beds

1 Reply

Post navigation

← Older posts

Search

Search for:

Social

View zencowboypoet’s profile on Facebook
View @meilineil’s profile on Twitter
View neilmeili’s profile on Instagram

Neil’s Latest Book Available in Paperback and Large Print Edition though Amazon worldwide

Want More Poetry? Sign Up Here.

Upcoming Events

Self video for LOHSTV October 21, 2019 at 4:30 pm – 5:30 pm
Anniversary December 14, 2019 – December 15, 2019
Trystyn Birthday May 3, 2020
Kristine’s Birthday May 11, 2020
Angelina’s Birthday May 13, 2020
Emma’s Birthday September 16, 2020

Latest Poetry

The Farmer’s Daughter
Bee is for Beauty
Mud
4 e e
Ides of April

Recent Comments

w on Blue Spruce
neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com on Ides of April
Geneviève Cailloux on Ides of April
wolfgang on Baling Love
wolfgang on Baling Love

Categories

Audio Recordings
Cattle
Cowboy Poetry
Cows
Environment
Farm
Flight
Haiku
Limerick
Manure
Nature
News
Nostalgia
Personal Growth
Pilots
Poems about Poetry
Ranch Life
Relationships
Remembering
String Too Short To Save
Travel
Uncategorized

Tags

9-11 Aboriginal Aging Alcohol Art Birds Childhood Children Cowboys Dance Death Dreams Faith Family Farm Farming Father Fear First Nations Friendship Greece Grief Horses Hunting Indian Iraq Love Mother Music Nature Poetry Prairie Psychology Ranch Life Regret Religion sensuality Small Town Solitude Travel Voice Dialogue War Winter Wisdom Youth

Archives

Meta

Log in
Entries RSS
Comments RSS
WordPress.org

©2015 Neil Meili. All Right Reserved.

Theme Designed By ThemeVan | Powered by WordPress